Dead Poets Society

seeping into your work. Mister Pitts, Cameron, Overstreet, and Chapman, line up over here please. ” He pointed to the four boys to stand near him. “On the count of four, I want you to begin walking together around the courtyard. Nothing to think about. No grade here. One, two, three, go!”
    The boys began walking. They walked down one side of the courtyard, across the back, up the other e> and across the front, completing the square.
    “That’s the way,” Keating said. “Please continue.”
    The boys walked around the courtyard again as the rest of the class and the teacher watched. Soon they began to walk in step, a march-like cadence emanating from the pavement. They continued in a one-two-three-four pattern as Keating began to clap to the rhythm.
    “There it is... Hear it?” he called, clapping louder in time. “One two, one two, one two, one two... We re all having fun, in Mr. Keating’s class...”
    Sitting in his empty classroom grading papers, McAllister observed the commotion through the window. The four marchers picked up on their cadence. They lifted their legs high and swung their arms back and forth, keeping the rhythm alive. The class joined in clapping out the beat.
    Distracted by the clapping and cheering, Dean Nolan put down his work and peered through the window at the drill-team activity below. Nolan’s eyebrows furrowed as he frowned at Keating clapping and shouting to the English class. What in the world are they doing? he wondered.
    “All right, stop,” Mr. Keating called to the marchers. “You may have noticed how at the beginning Misters Overstreet and Pitts seemed to have a different stride than the others—Pitts with his long lurches, Knox with that light little bounce—but soon all were walking in the same cadence. Our encouragement made it even more marked,” he pointed out.
    “Now, this experiment was not to single out Pitts or Overstreet. What it demonstrates is how difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others. If any of you think you would have marched differently, then ask yourself why you were clapping. Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular. As Frost said, “ ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.’”
    The bell rang, but the boys remained rooted in their spots, watching Keating and absorbing his message. Then Keating saluted the class and walked off.
    Nolan moved away from his window as the class dispersed. What do I do with this one? he thought. McAllister, chuckling at Keating’s antics, returned to grading his papers.
    The boys walked from the courtyard to their next class. “Were meeting at the cave after dinner,” Cameron said to Neil.
    “What time?”
    “Seven-thirty.”
    “I’ll pass it along,” Neil said as he walked over to Todd.
    Later that night, Todd, Neil, Cameron, Pitts, and Meeks sat around a fire in the cave, warming their hands. A thick fog had moved in, and the trees swayed noisily from the gusty wind.
    “It’s spooky out tonight,” Meeks said with a shiver, moving closer to the fire. “Where’s Knox?”
    “Getting ready for that party,” Pitts chuckled.
    “What about Charlie? He’s the one who insisted on this meeting,” Cameron said.
    The others shrugged. Neil opened the meeting: “1 went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately... to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...’” Neil stopped short as he listened to a rustle in the woods. They all heard something, and it sure wasn’t the wind. Funny, it sounded like a bunch of girls giggling.
    “I can’t see a thing,” a girl’s voice echoed into the cave.
    “It’s just over here,“ the boys heard Charlie say.
    The fire glowed brightly on the faces of the boys surrounding it as Charlie and two older girls came giggling into the cave.
    Hey, guys, Charlie said, holding his arm around the shoulder of a pretty blond, “meet Gloria and...” He hesitated and looked at Gloria’s friend, a plain girl, with dark hair and green eyes.
    “Tina,” she said awkwardly, taking a drink from a can of beer.
    “Tina and Gloria,” Charlie said happily, “this is the pledge class of the Dead Poets Society. ”
    “It’s such a strange name!” Gloria laughed. “Won’t you tell us what it means?”
    “I told